Slavery Advertisements Published September 6, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 6, 1776).

September 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-England Chronicle (September 5, 1776).

“ISAIAH THOMAS … has removed his PRINTING OFFICE to SALEM.”

Isaiah Thomas had plans to establish a new newspaper in Salem in the fall of 1776.  He announced his intention in an advertisement in the September 5 edition of the New-England Chronicle, declaring that “at the Request of several Gentlemen in the County of Essex, he has removed his PRINTING OFFICE to SALEM” and would begin publishing a newspaper there “as soon as a sufficient Number of Subscribers appear to support it.”  Thomas described himself as the “Late Printer and Publisher of the well-known Massachusetts Spy, in BOSTON,” but he did not mention that he had also left Boston just before the battles at Lexington and Concord and printed the Massachusetts Spy in Worcester throughout the siege of Boston.   Not long after the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, Thomas made plans to return to the coast and leased the Massachusetts Spy to William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow.  He had more experience printing a newspaper that supported the American cause than he acknowledged in his advertisement.

To make his new newspaper competitive with others printed in and near Boston, Thomas pledged that customers could purchase subscriptions “on the same Terms as the Boston Papers.”  M. Williams, a bookseller, already collected subscriptions.  The printer anticipated that he would soon take in subscriptions at his printing office in the store previously occupied by John Gooll “in the Main-Street, fronting the Road leading to Marblehead.”  He estimated that it would take about four weeks to gather enough subscribers to support the newspaper.  Despite his efforts and experience, however, the new newspaper never materialized.  Thomas recounted what happened only briefly in his History of Printing in America(1810), stating that “many obstructions to the plan arising in consequence of the war” caused him to sell “the printing materials which he carried to that town.”  In 1778, he returned to Worcester, “took into possession the press which he had left there, and resumed the publication” of the Massachusetts Spy.[1]  People clamored for the news, as a notice from Stearns and Bigelow in the Massachusetts Spy demonstrated, yet that was not necessarily enough to make printing a newspaper a viable enterprise.  Whether or not Thomas attracted enough subscribers, a variety of challenges, including shortages of paper during the Revolutionary War, prevented him from launching a newspaper in Salem.

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[1] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers (1810; New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), 181.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 5, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Continental Journal (September 5, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (September 5, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (September 5, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (September 5, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (September 5, 1776).

September 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Maryland Journal (September 4, 1776).

“DOCTOR FENDALL, OPERATOR upon the TEETH, is just arrived in this town.”

During the first week of September 1776, “DOCTOR FENDALL, OPERATOR upon the TEETH,” arrived in Baltimore and began seeking patients.  He placed an advertisement outlining his services in the Maryland Journal, announcing that he “cures the scurvy in the gums,” “prevents teeth from growing rotten,” “transplants natural teeth from one person to another,” “Makes and fixes artificial teeth,” and “extracts teeth and stumps.”  For each of those procedures, he offered additional details intended to reassure prospective patients of his skill and the effectiveness of his treatments.  When it came to artificial teeth, for instance, Fendall declared that he “makes and fixes [them] with the greatest exactness and nicety, without pain or the least inconvenience, so that they may eat, drink, or sleep with them in their mouths as natural ones.”  Even better, Fendall’s artificial teeth “cannot be discovered by the sharpest eye.”

In addition to an array of dental procedures, Fendall also hawked his own “DENTRIFICE” or toothpaste, entering the market of patent medicines.  He promised that his toothpaste was “quite free from any corrosive preparation” that would eat away at the teeth.  Instead, it would “restore the gums to their pristine state, … prevent the tooth-ach, and render the breath delicately sweet,” but only “if the tartarous substance is off the teeth.”  That suggested that patients who purchased Fendall’s toothpaste should first visit him for a cleaning.  Among his services, he highlighted that he “scales the teeth from that corrosive, tartarous, gritty substance, [which] impedes the gum from growing, infects the breath, and is one of the principal cause of the scurvy, which … eats away the gums, so that many peoples teeth fall out.”  Fendall hoped to make two sales at once, charging patients for cleaning their teeth and the toothpaste necessary to maintain the treatment.  He also advised that each pot of his toothpaste was “signed with his own hand to prevent fraud.”  Consumers could protect themselves from forgeries through that means of confirming the authenticity of the “DENTRIFICE” they purchased.

Fendall aimed to create a sense of urgency around scheduling appointments for procedures and purchasing his toothpaste.  He concluded his advertisement with a nota bene that warned, “His Stay in Town will be only one Week.”  He may have planned to stay longer, especially if prospective patients responded to his advertisement, but he wanted them to think that they could avail themselves of his services for a limited time only.  He tried to drum up as much business as quickly as possible to make his stay in Baltimore, however long it lasted, a viable venture.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 4, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (September 4, 1776).

September 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 3, 1776).

“Thanks to those Ladies who employed her late husband in his life time.”

Hannah Russell, a staymaker in Philadelphia, wanted to maintain the clientele that her husband cultivated and, if possible, expand it.  In an advertisement in the September 3, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, she announced that she “CARRIES on the trade of Stay-making in the same place where her late husband, Edward Russell, deceased, lived.”  She may have hoped that his death would garner some sympathy among prospective customers for a widow left to fend for herself.  She “beg[ged] that the Ladies of this city will be pleased to favour her with their custom,” pledging that she would “always make it her business to have her work well done, and to procure the best of stuff and materials for that purpose.”  Like other artisans who placed newspaper advertisements, Russell emphasized quality while also expressing her intention “to give satisfaction and merit the esteem of her kind employers.”

Russell concluded by expressing “thanks to those Ladies who employed her late husband in his life time.”  Building on that relationship, she hoped they would “continue their custom.”  Many of those former customers may have already worn corsets that Russell helped in constructing.  Many of them also likely knew Hannah.  Even though Edward had been the public face of the business, Hannah probably assisted him, both through interacting with customers and helping to make the stays that they ordered.  That she had the skills to run the business on her own following her husband’s death suggests that she had been making contributions when he was alive.  As a married woman, a feme covert under English common law, she played a supporting role, but that did not mean that she was absent from Edward’s workshop.  Rather than being his business, it was likely a family business, one that Hannah knew as well or almost as well as her husband.  Following his death, she attempted to leverage her prior experience and the relationships she and Edward forged with customers to encourage their clientele to continue getting their stays from the family’s workshop.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 3, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (September 3, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (September 3, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 3, 1776).

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Postscript to Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 3, 1776).

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Postscript to Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 3, 1776).

September 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 2, 1776).

“THE City of New-York, is now invaded by a powerful Fleet and Army.”

Samuel Loudon summarized recent events in the first line of his advertisement in the September 2, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Residents of the city and nearby towns already knew that the British had captured New York.  Most other readers likely learned about the British occupation of New York before reading Loudon’s advertisement, probably hearing about it before reading about it in any newspaper.

Still, delivering the news was an important precursor for what Loudon needed to share with subscribers to his newspaper, the New York Packet.  Due to the occupation, the “Inhabitants [of New York] are obliged to seek a Retreat in the Country.”  Among those who sight refuge in the countryside, Loudon “remov[ed] his Printing-Office to FISH KILLS, where the Provincial Congress now reside.”  That location offered safety as well as access to news about the state government, once he managed to open a printing office there.  “With regret,” Loudon continued, “he is under the Necessity of Informing his Customers, that he will be obliged to discontinue the Publication of the NEW-YORK PACKET, for several Weeks, occasioned. By the Trouble of moving as well as the great Scarcity of Printing Paper.”

Loudon had been publishing the New York Packet for only eight months before circumstances caused him to retreat to Fishkill.  He distributed the first issue on January 4, 1776, and suspended it with the August 29 edition, just before the British entered the city.  It took longer than he anticipated to resume publication.  According to Clarence S. Brigham, “The first Fishkill issue was undoubtedly that of Jan. 16, 1777, vol. 1, no. 36, but the earliest located is that of Feb. 6, 1777, vol. 1, no. 39.”[1]  Loudon continued the volume and issue numbering uninterrupted despite the suspension and relocation.  The British occupied New York throughout the remainder of the war.  Loudon remained in Fishkill, publishing his newspaper there until the end of August 1783.  He then returned to New York and continued the newspaper without changing the volume numbering in November 1783.  The war disrupted publication of the New York Packet, yet Loudon persevered.  He managed to continue supplying subscribers and other readers with news (and advertisements) despite the challenges of “removing his Printing-Office” beyond occupied New York.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 570.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 2, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston-Gazette (September 2, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (September 2, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (September 2, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (September 2, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 2, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (September 2, 1776).

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Newport Mercury (September 2, 1776).

September 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Providence Gazette (August 31, 1776).

“At the Sign of the Sugar-Loaf, the third House Northward of the Church in Providence.”

As fall approached in 1776, Melzar Packard took to the pages of the Providence Gazette to inform the public that he sold “West-India and N. England run, brandy, loaf and brown sugar, rice, flour, salt, pepper, allspice, and sundry other articles in the grocery way.”  He also stocked “an assortment of stone and earthen ware,” selling it all “at the cheapest rates.”

Some readers may have been familiar with Packard’s shop “At the Sign of the Sugar-Loaf.”  To help prospective customers find it, he gave additional directions: “the third House Northward of the Church in Providence.”  No American city or town used standardized street numbers in the 1770s.  The largest cities, Philadelphia and New York, would introduce them by the end of the century.  Until they became common, some entrepreneurs used signs to mark their locations and even more gave directions of some sort.  Like Packard, John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, did both.  At the end of each issue, the colophon indicated that customers could find the printing office “at Shakespear’sHead, in Meeting-Street, near the Court-House.”  Most advertisers relied solely on giving directions, often invoking local landmarks.  In the August 31, 1776, edition of the Providence Gazette, for instance, Nathaniel Greene advertised merchandise available “At his Store on the West Side of the Great Bridge.”  Similarly, Charles Dabney hawked an array of textiles and other wares “At his Shop, a little to the Westward of the Great Bridge.”  Welcome Arnold sold groceries, housewares, and hardware “Near the new Baptist Meeting-House.”  When patients needed the services of Mary Bass, a midwife, they could find her “at Dr. Thomas Truman’s, in Broadstreet.”  Residents and visitors devised ways for navigating Providence (and other American cities and towns) before assigning street numbers became standard practice.  Sometimes they used signs to mark their location, but other times their directions only took customers to the general vicinity.